The Unforgettable Guinevere St. Clair Read online

  As I pulled myself up again, the hood of my jacket was caught on another rock behind me, only inches from the surface.

  I pulled upward, but my hood kept me anchored in the deep.

  Words came to me in puzzle pieces . . . oxygen . . . brain . . . Mama. I needed air. My father wouldn’t be able to handle another loss. Nana. Bitty needed me! And Vienna. She would know Gwyn was gone, wouldn’t she? I swam, kicking my arms and legs, but I was losing to the deep that had once claimed Myron, a boy I would meet only in heaven. Darkness was growing as the sound of the water became louder in my ears.

  The kicking legs of Jimmy disappeared, replaced by a bright light. It was coming for me.

  But then a dark shadow interrupted, moved between me and the light. A hand came through the water.

  It was a very large, meaty hand. Different from Wilbur’s. It reached for me with authority. It was alive. It was strong, calloused, a farmer’s hand. I could hear the voice even under the water. It was not a request.

  “Take my hand,” the voice said. “Guinevere St. Clair, take my hand!”

  My eyes focused in on the hand. There was a missing finger.

  I took it. It yanked me up hard, the hood of my coat tearing as I was hauled out of the water. The hand dragged me across the rocks, my sopping socks and heels hitting the jagged but smooth stones.

  I was cradled like a baby, hair and water wiped from my eyes. A large mouth opened and closed above me. Veins bulged on a forehead, along a red-and-purple scar. I couldn’t move my face, my mouth, or body. But when Bitty threw herself on me, a warm relief came. She was safe. Micah grabbed my hand, sobbing, hot tears falling like sizzling embers on my frozen cheeks.

  The light shifted toward the river.

  I turned my head. It was Jimmy I last remember seeing, on the other side of the rock barrier, as the current carried him away from us.

  Floating dead on the water.

  CHAPTER 32

  I AWOKE COLD, IN THE HOSPITAL, listening to whispered reports I could barely make out. Did they know that Wilbur was in the river?

  What was long anticipated as my great triumph, wasn’t at all. Jimmy was gone.

  Every time I opened my eyes, I saw Gaysie Cutter’s face above me on the river. So I kept my eyes closed and shut my brain off like a faucet, so I wouldn’t remember. For the first time I envied Vienna’s blank memories.

  Within two days I was discharged from the hospital and carried to my bed so I could “rest up and get all better.” But I hid my eyes from daylight like a vampire. The longer I lay, the more tired I felt. Guilt was coming for me like a runaway train. They said I was like Vienna, and now I really was. Wasn’t it she who had wanted to go down on that sled with Gaysie? And wasn’t it me, who first suggested sailing to the Mississippi?

  Dreams were nightmares. Not whole stories, but broken images of Styrofoam, Jimmy, struggling, trying to save me, cold river water, legs thrashing, deep gasps of air, an unforgiving current. The last one—of Jimmy being taken—it gutted me. My resentment toward Gaysie grew into a hard, cold stone. Jimmy had loved her, needed her. Why had she not given Jimmy her hand instead of me?

  And, of all people, how could Jimmy give up the fight? He was a quitter, and I hated him for it!

  “Gwyn,” my father whispered as he held me tight. Even as I was shutting down, my father was not letting go. One last miracle. One more time.

  He began talking about the brain. He said I was in shock, but it didn’t feel like shock. It was like a bitter poison taking over, nothing else. I should have let Jimmy practice cutting my hair, like he wanted. I never should have yelled at him by the rocket slide.

  My father brought Vienna to sit next to me, either to keep me company, or to vex me into saying something.

  “Are you sick?” Vienna asked. In her hands she was holding the puzzle of our family.

  When I didn’t answer, she leaned closer.

  “Tell me a story. I like Guinevere and Arthur. Or Peter Pan.” When I said nothing, she got bored and stood up, shuffled closer, and peered down at my face.

  “This is my room,” she said. Before I could stop them, tears were trickling down my face. I commanded my brain to make them stop, but they kept coming down, down, down my face and chin, dropping small drops onto my shoulders and running cold down the back of my neck.

  “Why are you sad?” Vienna asked, her own eyes filling.

  “I’m sad Jimmy left me!” I whispered ferociously. “I’m sad you left me.”

  The last sentence shocked even me. But now I really understood: Life wasn’t as good without some people in it, no matter how hard you tried.

  I closed my eyes, so tired. It seemed I’d been running for so long now. Trying to run away from her while being pulled to her like a magnet. Again and again.

  She draped one arm over my body and fell asleep, snoring quietly in my ear. I didn’t shake her off. It was the first time since I was four years old that I had cried in my mother’s arms. At any other time, this would have made me somewhat happy.

  • • •

  “I was trying to sleep,” Gaysie said to the room. I didn’t want to hear her, but she spoke in her annoyingly loud and enunciated voice so I would have to listen.

  “God knows I needed the rest after all that sandbagging, but I kept having this dream about you, Guinevere, the same dream I’d been having for months. And a voice came to my mind—Go to the children!”

  I lifted my eyelids at her, watched her become animated as she recounted.

  “I was Samuel hearing the voice of the Lord!”

  I startled as she banged forcefully on the desk in my room.

  “The voice came to me again,” Gaysie said. “GO to your children! It woke me up right in here!” She pounded on her chest with her fist. “I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again—when the spirit moves you, you move!”

  I opened my eyes all the way, blinked from the light. Bitty and Micah sat on my bed, while my father slumped in a chair in the corner, his face pale and haggard. Vienna, holding Love-a-Lot, sat in a chair next to Nana. I turned my head to Gaysie, who was speaking directly to me.

  “I was struck with an almighty fear! Seeing you all gone, I knew you had gone to the river.” Micah hung his head, and I waited for the reprimand but it didn’t come.

  “The whole town was watching crazy Gaysie driving the Blue Mistress along the river. Those boys you call Creepers told me they’d seen a raft sailing down the river and that Travis Maynard jumped in after you. I knew exactly what had happened!

  “I found you at least two miles up the river after you’d hit the rocks.” Gaysie’s voice broke as she cleared her throat and began to hum. There was an audible sigh as Nana closed her eyes.

  “Gaysie,” my father said, “if you hadn’t been there . . .”

  “No,” she said. “Like I told you, I was told to move. That’s all I did, same as you did on Halloween night, following after them to make sure they were safe.”

  My father! Following us. Standing in the moonlight, the torn shirt from the dogs.

  “Look who’s awake,” he said. I knew he was looking at the pupils of my eyes, the color in my face, trying to gauge my brain’s neural connections.

  “Gaysie saved me,” I said, surprised at how soft my voice sounded.

  My father nodded and fell to his knees beside the bed. I had spoken.

  I could hear the commanding voice. Take my hand! Guinevere!

  Gaysie, my archnemesis with the missing finger, had saved me from certain death.

  Micah spoke as he stared out the window. “Jimmy saved us too.”

  CHAPTER 33

  FOUR DAYS AFTER JIMMY DIED, Nana went to church to pray for me and the soul of Jimmy Quintel.

  My father lifted me out of my white sheets and covers and carried me outside, where the sun was shining, a light spring breeze lifting my hair. It was a beautiful morning that would have normally delighted me. Instead, I sat on the stairs, weakly clutching the railing.
I didn’t want to see the sky, the hayfield across the street. I didn’t want to be reminded of Micah and Jimmy coming down Lanark Lane with a cape and a skateboard. It was an unnerving feeling, being alive in the world without Jimmy in it.

  “Would you like to go for a walk?” my father asked.

  I shook my head.

  “Where do you hurt, Gwyn?”

  Another head shake.

  “Your heart?”

  I nodded.

  “You feel it’s broken?” I leaned against him silently, until he finally carried me inside and tucked me back into bed. But he raised the blinds in my room to let the light in, and opened a window.

  “Why did you follow us on Halloween?” My voice was so soft it was barely a whisper. I figured since I was about to perish I might as well get the answers I had been seeking.

  “I saw you leave when I was coming home from your mother’s. I suspected it had something to do with finding Wilbur.”

  “Daddy. Your fingerprints were on the Blue Mistress.”

  “My fingerprints?”

  “Georgia Piehl sent me the results.”

  He raised his eyebrows.

  Was he protecting Gaysie? Or was it even worse than that?

  “You obtained fingerprints they could match in a lab?” I heard the note of pride in his voice. “Guinevere,” he said, “I was on the tractor because I suppose I became a bit suspicious myself.”

  “Suspicious of her.”

  I’ll admit, my heart had softened mightily toward Gaysie. She had saved my life, after all. Though I reminded myself she had also almost tried to kill me the first time we met. Suspicions that Gaysie had something to do with Wilbur’s disappearance and death still nagged at my brain. I had to find out. And I’d do it for Jimmy.

  “I’ve asked myself a million times—how wide the truth really is and how much is mine to know. I didn’t find anything that night except my precocious Gwyn.”

  “But she did it, didn’t she?” I asked, agitated. “There was blood on the steering wheel.”

  “From her finger, I imagine. I must have touched it. Let’s rest now. Your body and brain need to heal.”

  But I knew better. I wasn’t going to heal. I was going to die.

  “You aren’t going to die,” he said as if reading my very thoughts. “You know why? Because you don’t die from a broken heart. Let me show you something,” he said, going to his room and bringing back the weirdly broken Japanese pot.

  “Remember when I got this?”

  I nodded.

  “Do you know how it’s made?

  I did not.

  “It’s Japanese kintsugi art. See how the cracks are repaired with a golden lacquer? It seals the cracks but doesn’t attempt to cover them or make the pottery look new. Instead, it purposely accentuates the damage. This type of pot is highly sought after, and some people even purposely break their pottery to apply this art form, transforming their ordinary bowls and vases into high-end art. Many consider the vase to be more beautiful than before.”

  “But it’s broken.”

  “Yes, Guinevere. And it can be beautiful again.”

  I could see why my father liked the cracked pot. It was pretty and uncommon. It was also the story of our lives. And my father was living proof, wasn’t he? You didn’t die from a broken heart.

  Still. A broken pot. It might be beautiful again, but it’s never quite the same as before, is it?

  • • •

  When Nana came home from church, she wheeled in Vienna, who was sucking on a cherry lollipop.

  “That’s her third,” Nana said. “I thought they were supposed to keep her quiet.”

  “No?” my father asked.

  “No! She swore twice, dropped her gum on the floor, and belched in the middle of the prayer! Of course it had to be Dottie who stepped on her gum.”

  My father stifled a laugh.

  Nana threw her hands up in the air. “Dottie said it was just fine, ha!”

  Bitty piped up. “Vienna was very loud and asked why Dottie had skunk hair!”

  Nana sat on the bed next to me and exhaled.

  “Gwyn, Penny and Charlie from your class at school were in attendance, and so many children told me to tell you hello.” She touched my leg gingerly. “Your teacher, Mrs. Law . . . even those boys you call the Creepers.” The Creepers. I blamed them for what happened, and I’d hate them even more if I had the energy.

  “Then at the last moment Gaysie Cutter and Micah walked in, right down the center aisle. I never thought I’d see the day.”

  “She was wearing a big bird on top of her hat!” Bitty said.

  “Yes,” Nana said. “A bright green suit and a hat so large she looked like she was going to the Kentucky Derby with these giant green-and-blue peacock feathers.”

  “She prayed like this,” Bitty said, clasping her hands together, shutting her eyes tight, and rocking back and forth.

  “Bitty,” Nana said. “Honey, go take off your jacket, wash your hands, and get ready for lunch.” When Bitty left, Nana lowered her voice as if I couldn’t hear her.

  “They found his body.”

  “Jimmy!” My father stood quickly.

  “No, not Jimmy,” Nana said. “Wilbur. He was in the river. He’d been dead—for quite a while.”

  My hands clutched the white sheets. It had been real. Wilbur was dead.

  “Pastor Weare announced that?”

  “Certainly not. I heard afterward, in the foyer. Jake and the other officers recovered his body while looking for Jimmy. He had a small head wound, but he’d been dead a long time. They think Wilbur must have had a heart attack or fell and hit his head. Remember how his tractor was parked so close to the river? His body was caught up near the rocks, up at Crow Landing, where it catches all the trees and debris . . . where the children were. I shouldn’t have been angry with him for not showing up to till my vegetable garden! Oh, I feel just awful.”

  “Ah, Wilbur,” my father said, his voice sad.

  “Yes,” Nana said, her voice wobbly.

  Nana felt my forehead. “She’s got a fever, Jed. We need to bring her in again.”

  “I’ll call Dr. Long,” my father said, rising.

  “I was thinking about Jimmy,” my father said, when he came back into the room. “They haven’t found him yet. Wouldn’t it be something . . .” His thought trailed undisturbed, hopeful like a child’s rising soap bubble.

  Nana stomped it down hard. “No. Gaysie and the kids saw his body on the water. He’s gone, Jed.”

  “They saw his body on the water, floating,” my father repeated. I could hear the way he was pondering that, like when he was looking at a model of the brain and asking us questions aloud, like he was trying to make it fit together. “Why would he be floating?”

  It was unreal, the way they could talk about my friend Jimmy and finding his body.

  “I should help,” my father said. “But I can’t leave her.” I felt his fingers touch mine. “I ask for so much, and I already got my miracle. How can I ask for more?”

  “Ask for Jimmy,” I said, my voice coming out as a whisper. For the first time since coming home, I felt a small hope. Was it possible that it was such a simple thing? Just ask.

  “What, honey? Did you say something?”

  But when I tried to say it again, my tongue was thick and my mouth unable to move.

  “I asked Gaysie to help me head up the summer perennial show,” Nana said, changing the subject.

  “She sat by us at church today, huh, Nana?” Bitty said, coming back into the room.

  “She will always sit with us,” Nana said, patting her chest. “Bless her heart.”

  • • •

  Later, when I was wrapped in Vienna’s old quilt, I sat outside on the porch swing with Gaysie. She was so large I was tipped precariously back and upward. At any moment I expected the porch swing to come crashing down.

  I clung to the chain for dear life as Vienna, who was sitting on the other sid
e of me in her wheelchair, watched Micah and Bitty pet Willowdale. Micah hung on the fence next to Bitty, a yellow sash tied around his head.

  Gaysie stopped rocking, watching them. “You taught me something, Guinevere. You were right. His sweetness is his superpower.”

  Known for her impeccable timing, Vienna chimed in. “I’m hungry.”

  “I’ve been thinking about Jimmy,” Gaysie said. “Vienna, do you remember that fabulously obnoxious boy with the skateboard and Mohawk?”

  Vienna looked at us blankly.

  It was then I did something most appalling: I began to cry right in front of Gaysie Cutter. How could anyone forget Jimmy Quintel?

  “Let me tell you about heaven,” Gaysie said matter-of-factly, over my tears. “Jimmy’s such a lucky boy! Heaven was a place I never wanted to leave.” She rocked, straining the screw in the porch ceiling even further.

  “You died and they brought you back?” I said, wiping my face. Epinephrine was shot up in Vienna’s heart the day she died too. The paramedics had worked on her, had put electrical paddles on her chest, and given her CPR.

  Gaysie shook her head. “Oh no, they didn’t! I came back because I chose to.”

  “How?”

  “Myron and I hit the ice and crashed through. I’ve driven myself all kinds of crazy reliving that moment. We both became trapped, couldn’t get out from under the ice.” She shook off the memory with a giant jiggling of her arms.

  “And then what?”

  “Eventually I was lying on top of the ice with the great light above, asking to leave this earth. I said no one loved me.”

  “What did the light say?”

  “It said that even if it was true, I had to learn to love myself.” She paused. “God knows I’m trying.”

  “It was Vienna’s idea, wasn’t it?”

  Vienna began to sniffle.

  “Now, Vienna, don’t be silly,” Gaysie said matter-of-factly. “You know full well I wanted to sled down that hill too.”

  “But you took the blame,” I said.